Why India’s clean air battle must go beyond cities

Air pollution is often seen as an urban problem, with India’s villages presumed to be relatively unaffected. But the reality may be quite different.

A new analysis covering 24 states between 2014 and 2023 found that while the PM 2.5 levels were higher in urban areas than in rural areas in 22 states, the gap was marginal in most. In 16 states, the difference was less than 10 per cent.

The analysis was done by Centre for Research on Energy & Clean Air (CREA) researcher Manoj Kumar and published in India Air Quality & Energy Insights.

The findings

The urban-rural gap was less than 5 per cent in states such as Punjab, Rajasthan, Bihar and Goa, indicating comparable PM 2.5 levels in both areas.

In two states, Kerala and West Bengal, the trend was reversed in 2023, with rural areas recording higher PM 2.5 concentrations than the urban areas.

The gap, however, was considerably wider in some states. Chhattisgarh recorded the largest difference, with urban PM2.5 levels 31.3 per cent higher than rural concentrations. It was followed by Uttarakhand (29.8 per cent), Tripura (19.1 per cent), Sikkim (17.6 per cent), Maharashtra and Haryana (15.2 per cent each), Jharkhand (14 per cent) and Uttar Pradesh (11.4 per cent).

The wider gap, however, doesn’t necessarily indicate cleaner rural air.

India’s National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) for PM2.5 is 40 µg/m³.

In several states where the urban-rural gap exceeded 10 per cent, rural PM2.5 levels were still above the national standard. Rural concentrations stood at 48.4 µg/m³ in Chhattisgarh, 47.4 µg/m³ in Tripura, 63.9 µg/m³ in Haryana, 46.3 µg/m³ in Jharkhand and 60.7 µg/m³ in Uttar Pradesh.

High rural pollution was not confined to states with a wider urban-rural gap. In seven states where the difference was less than 10 per cent, rural PM2.5 levels still exceeded the NAAQS standards. These included West Bengal, Punjab, Rajasthan, Bihar, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh and Delhi.

The analysis used PM2.5 estimates from the Atmospheric Composition Analysis Group at Washington University, and combined it with Survey of India's village-boundary data.

Policy implications

While India has the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP), its focus remains on the cities.

“Its city-focused structure was understandable when the priority was to target India’s most polluted urban centres,” Kumar writes in his analysis. “But the evidence suggests that NCAP should no longer be framed as a programme for cities alone.”

India’s rural population is also bearing the burden of air pollution. It is therefore important that rural areas are factored into the country’s clean air programme.